The Hallow Bright
by acciograce
Summary: Prim is dead. Katniss and Peeta have to figure out a way to make it through their first Christmas without her. Modern AU. Warning: Allusions to domestic abuse


_Dec. 18, 2014_

_Seasons Greetings PCCA Teammates,_

_Just a friendly reminder to bring your __**SECRET SANTA**_ _gifts to tomorrow's ho-ho-holiday mixer! And don't forget to bring something for our non-denominational potluck celebration. The sign up sheet is at my desk. __**WE NEED APPETIZERS**_**.**

_Also, don't forget, you can still make contributions to the Primrose Everdeen Memorial Scholarship Fund. Please see me for more details._

_Can't wait to see you!_

_Delly Cartwright_

_Executive Assistant | Panem County Community Affairs_

* * *

><p>I'd never admit that seeing my dead sister's name in the company Christmas mixer email was what kept me home from work. But even though I woke up in perfect health that morning, I called in sick on December 19th.<p>

No one batted an eye. Not Jo, my cube-mate who used to hassle me if I showed up even five minutes late. Not perky Delly Cartwright, who'd insisted we adopt Prim's legacy fund as the department's annual "Giving Back" campaign benefactor when she heard about it on Twitter.

Not Peeta, who left for work before dawn and came back to our apartment just after lunchtime to find me unmoved from where he'd left me in bed.

He asked me if I'd like some tea. And when I didn't answer, he didn't push.

So I lay in bed, listening to the running water in the kitchen; to him quietly loading our dishwasher and turning it on.

And when I heard him coming back down the hall to check on me a little while later, I pretended to be asleep. Because even though I knew he wouldn't ask, I didn't want to have to risk telling him that it was a Not Okay day. I didn't want to tell how how afraid I was that the next few weeks would be full of them.

* * *

><p>I've had a lot of them lately. Not Okay days. Dr. Aurelius, a family friend Mom made me promise to see after the funeral, has me divide days up. Okay days. Neutral days. Not Okay days. Bad days.<p>

He says he knows I won't have Good days - not for a while.

But if I can build my life around the goal of avoiding the Bad ones, I'll be okay.

Those are the ones when I don't eat. When I can't stop shaking. When I break down in the bathroom stall at work and have to fake a migraine to go home. When my hands shake so hard I can't turn the car on, so I end up walking the ten miles back to my apartment, scaring my boyfriend who tried - and failed - to get ahold of me for hours.

I haven't had a Bad day in weeks.

But since fall started its slow descent into winter, the Not Okay days have made a pretty serious play for the norm. So much so, that I'm starting to think that Okay days are a thing of the past.

* * *

><p><em><strong>PrimE2012 <strong>__ HawthorneGale brings me Oreo shakes wen my dishwasher breaks. #bestboyfriendever_

My sister was an avid Twitter user. In just under two years, she racked up an impressive 6,493 tweets and about 500 followers, mostly high school and college classmates and fellow nursing students from around the country.

Two days after she died - three days after she posted those 72 characters, that second number skyrocketed close to 10,000. Because her name was all over the news. And so was the hashtag-best-boyfriend-ever, Gale Hawthorne's - since he'd just been arrested for her murder.

This one silly, seemingly insignificant message - her last imprint in the digital world - has been favorited and retweeted a combined 13,416 times. As a memorial. As "oh my God, can you believe how ironic this is?" commentary. As a cautionary tale to young girls who think their abusive boyfriends love them just because they bring them snacks.

I look at it - her account, this last message, more than I should. More than I let on. I have her account up as a permanently open browser on my phone.

I stare for minutes on end at 'wen,' and feel a pang in my chest. But every time, it gives me something tangible to pour my neverending grief into - memories of Prim emailing me her English papers in college, begging for a proofread. Her annoyed emails back when I pointed out her numerous spelling errors.

"Like I'm going to need to know how to spell 'discipline,' when I'm administering saline drips," she'd countered, once, after a particularly brutal review. "No one cares about spelling, Katniss."

"Your English professor does," I'd reminded her.

But in the end, she was right. No one - not any of the countless news stories or blog posts about the tweet or her tragic demise - mentioned the typo. No one saw it but me. She was 22, and she was shot in the head in her kitchen. And she's dead, and her spelling never mattered at all.

* * *

><p>"<em>But it's Christmas<em>."

I can hear Peeta's mother through the phone. Her irritation at me, more precisely. That's not new - she's never exactly loved me.

Still, in the 14 weeks since Prim has been gone, Mrs. Mellark has developed a theory that I'm "slow to recover." I think that's her Panem Country Club hive-mentality way of saying I'm milking my grief, or trying to use it to shirk my responsibilities: Work, Peeta, tense and judgey Mellark gatherings.

Peeta has less patience for his mother than she has for me. He's told me more than once that he'd be happy to only see her on mandatory family holidays.

Then, after Thanksgiving, when she commented on how large the bags under my eyes had gotten in front of Peeta's flawless and extra-judgey sister-in-law Janie, Peeta told me he'd be fine to never see her again.

He delivered that message to her over the phone on Black Friday. But apparently, she hasn't quite digested it yet.

Now it's three days before the big family party, and he's trying to drive it home yet again.

"Actually, it will be Christmas Eve," Peeta says from his place on our bed. He's pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, which he only does when he's exceptionally stressed.

Guilt - the kind he tells me not to feel, but which I've felt with increasing regularity - rises into my throat from its regular residence in my chest. It seems like all I do anymore is cause Peeta problems. And all he does is take the blows - the last minute dinner cancellations, the incessant press calls as we get closer to trial, the holiday-related belligerence from his mother - and keep going for the both of us.

"I'm sure you'll manage," he says into the phone, glancing up at me and offering a weary, unconvincing smile. A pause and an eyeroll later, he speaks again, this time with a tone of finality. "Aunt Gloria will probably be thrilled to have something new to gossip about."

I can hear the way her voice lifts in a shrill, angry shout. Something about responsibility and duty and putting family first. Then, the words 'Katniss' and 'selfish' and 'destroying a family tradition.'

Peeta hangs up on her.

"She doesn't get it," he tells me, like he needs to explain her behavior. He rises, crosses our bedroom and drops a gentle kiss on the top of my head before he makes his way down the short hallway toward our living room. "She never has."

"I know," I say. But I see the droop in his shoulders, and the slow defeat in his gait, and I can't help but think that maybe she's right.

* * *

><p>Dr. Auerelius prescribed sleeping pills for Mom. She says she takes them every night, that they stave off the nightmares.<p>

I tried them once, and I found myself trapped in a nightmare, following a trail of blood to the woods, where I found my sister drowning face up in a thick, red lake, a single bullet wound, deep and gaping, above one eye.

I don't take the sleeping pills anymore. And even though an indescribable, overwhelming exhaustion has overtaken me these past few weeks, I find it harder and harder to sleep.

Tonight is no exception. At a little past three in the morning, I give up even trying, carefully extract myself from Peeta's gentle, sleep-laden embrace, and grasp for my phone on the bedside table.

I pull up Prim's Twitter account, and I start to scroll through. Retweets of important news events and cutesy Pinterest ideas for decorating the apartment she moved into just a month before she died.

Dozens and dozens of messages to and about her best friend Rue and Gale. They read like a carefully concocted story, of how a young, bright girl fell in love and lost her life.

_** PrimE2012 **__ HawthorneGale has no idea how much I love him. He thinks he does, but he's wrong._

_** PrimE2012 **__ HawthorneGale Love you!_

_** PrimE2012 **__Sometimes growing up means growing apart. #deepthoughts #cantsleep_

_** PrimE2012 **__ HawthorneGale We looked for that game you wanted but it wasn't at Best Buy. Ideas? #birthdayboy_

_** PrimE2012 **__ UnruelyGirl and I are on a mission. Wish us luck. #newCOD #likeeveryoneelse #help_

_** PrimE2012 **__ UnruelyGirl is probs tired of listening to me tlak about HawthorneGale by now. Yes/yes?_

_** PrimE2012 **__ UnruelyGirl and I have the best bromance of all time. #nocontest #truelove_

_** PrimE2012 **__ UnruelyGirl hates peppermint mocas. She's wrong._

It hurts, watching her digital incarnation slowly shift focus from the friend that she shared her childhood with to the man who took her life. Prim mentioned to me, a couple of weeks before she died, that she and Rue had a big fight and they weren't speaking. Rue told me, after she died, that she'd expressed concern at how Gale seemed to want to isolate her, and Prim had freaked out on her for it, told her she didn't understand.

Rue blamed herself for Prim's death. She still does. She thinks she could have done more. But the truth is, she did everything she could.

And I did nothing. Sure, I was a little concerned at how quickly things seemed to be moving between them. He was older, and so much more withdrawn and serious than any of her previous boyfriends. She was talking about having him move in with her, even though they'd only been together a few months.

But I was busy with work. I shrugged off his quiet, stern demeanor when we met up for drinks once, assuming maybe he was just shy.

I was too busy to notice that he was absolutely the wrong person for her. Until her death forced me to realize it.

Scrolling through her feed feels like paying penance. Like uncovering evidence of my failure as an older sister.

And looking at last year's tweets around the holidays - before Gale, before any of the bad stuff - somehow hurts even worse.

Christmas was her favorite time of year. She was the girl that started listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. She wore santa hats when she went out shopping. She put a red nose and antlers on her car.

Our family traditions were sacred to her. Her timeline reflects how much.

_** PrimE2012 **__The Xmas bake-off begins NOW. #winning _

_** PrimE2012 **__I dont care how old I get, Christmas trees will always be #magical_

_** PrimE2012 **__Just bought my mom drunken reindeer pajamas. I kinda want a pair for myself._

And then, there's this message.

_** PrimE2012 **__How do I tell my sister that her boyfriend is annoyingly perfect without offending her? #firstworldproblems_

It's dated December 20th, 2013. A year and three days ago.

For some reason, tonight, the memory that's tied to this message is the one that hurts the most.

* * *

><p>It was a big deal, Peeta helping us decorate the tree. Because that was a family thing. Over the years, boyfriends came and went. They sat at our table on Thanksgiving, and opened presents with us on Christmas afternoon. They celebrated birthdays and Independence Days with us. But they never decorated our tree.<p>

Prim was the one who invited him. Because she loved Peeta almost as much as I did. Because she told me, after she met him for the first time, that she would never forgive me if I broke up with him.

Prim believed in true love in a way that I did not.

Prim believed that Peeta was mine.

He came to Mom's house with a large gift bag. He was polite and warm with Mom, introducing himself and commenting kindly on her lovely home. He patiently answered her many questions about how long we'd been dating (five months), how we met (a mutual friend, Finnick) and what he did for a living (managed a bakery and catering service).

Mom doesn't believe in true love either. But the look she gave me over his shoulder as he accepted Prim's warm hug told me she was impressed.

The look said 'When did you start dating nice, normal guys?'

The look said 'I like this one.'

Peeta brought wine - a nice bottle of red that Mom opened immediately. Then, he pulled out three small wrapped gifts.

"What did you _do_, Peeta?" Prim cooed as he handed her a pink-and-orange striped box.

I looked at him warily when he handed me mine. I knew about the wine. I didn't know about the presents.

"Katniss said the tree thing is a big deal," Peeta explained, a hint of bashful color in his cheeks when he gave the last box to Mom. "A tradition. And it was so nice of you to invite me to join in, I wanted to contribute something. I hope it's okay."

"This is very thoughtful, Peeta," Mom told him, while giving me a more vehement version of The Look.

We unwrapped all at once, carefully lifting the lids off the nondescript white boxes underneath the paper.

Ornaments. Simple ceramic figurines - small and elegant.

Mom's was a flower, delicate, soft yellow, beautiful.

"Katniss said you like to garden," he explained, as my Mom looked at him, speechless.

Prim's, a rendering of a caduceus - the symbol so often associated with the medical profession.

"Since you just finished your nursing degree," he said with a shrug. She answered with a long embrace and an exaggerated hiccup of a sob. Prim loved everything about Christmas. But she loved her collection of ornaments the most. And whether Peeta knew it or not, the fact that he'd given her a new one meant he'd endeared himself to her forever.

Mine was a dark grey bird, lifting its wings, its beak pointed toward the sky like it was about to take flight.

"You didn't have to," I told him, lifting the ornament on its string to admire it against the twinkling lights.

"It just reminded me of you," he told me, giving me a hesitant smile.

I kissed him. In front of my mother, and my sister, and our Christmas tree.

And that night, in his bed, I placed kisses along his collarbone as I ran my hands down his bare chest. I watched his reverent blue eyes as I positioned myself on top of him. I listened to his desperate, gasping breaths as he grasped my hips and pushed up into me. And I started to believe in love, too.

* * *

><p>I divide my days like Dr. A tells me to. And I divide my life into two groups. The time with Prim, the time without her. There's a thick line that separates them. And it's called September 9th.<p>

The time with Prim was full; the memories are vibrant. Neverending phone calls with my chattery, enthusiastic sister. Laughter around the dinner table, even when the food wasn't exactly gourmet.

And near the end, when Peeta became a part of my daily life, it was especially enjoyable.

It took me a while to warm to him. Mostly because I couldn't figure out what it was about him that made me want to be around him all the time. He was, in so many ways, the opposite of me; warm, and extroverted. The kind of guy that's friends with everyone. Usually, people like Peeta Mellark intimidate the hell out of me.

I almost backed out more than once - stood Peeta up, or stopped returning his texts. But Prim told me to stop trying to destroy a good thing. And I realized she was right. I was scared of having something good. Because good things had a tendency to end.

Once I _did_ let him in, after a handful of dates and hours texting back and forth, I never regretted it.

He made me laugh. I made _him_ laugh. He cooked. I got him to start going out with me on my weekend runs.

We made out like teenagers. We had amazing sex - the kind of sex that leaves you happily sore in the morning. The kind of sex that drives you to distraction when you think about it the next day.

The time after Prim has been quiet. Work, and dinner, and clipped conversation. It's all I have energy for. Peeta hasn't pushed, and he hasn't pulled away, and his patience hurts because I know how hard it must be for him. And there's nothing I know how to do that will give me a Good day. Nothing I can do to make it better.

I can't remember the last time I kissed him.

Gale Hawthorne stole more than my sister. He took my stake in the world - any good feeling that maybe things would shake out okay in the end.

And now it's the day before her favorite day of the year, and I don't even know how to begin to celebrate.

He took every ordinary day, and every tradition and ripped them wide open. Left a gaping hole where she should be. He's made it impossible for me to even try to honor her in a way she deserves.

She wouldn't have wanted this to be our first Christmas without her. She would have wanted us to decorate, and laugh, and remember.

But I can't bear to remember, so I don't even know where to start.

So I sit, and I read through the remainder of Prim's 6,000 tweets until Peeta wakes up and I pretend to be asleep.

* * *

><p>The boxes from Prim's apartment are in our spare bedroom. Mom couldn't bear to even look at them, so I took on the burden.<p>

I don't go in there much. But at 4 a.m. on December 24th, I open the door, flick on the overhead light, and creep inside.

It hit me at dinner, what I needed to do. But it took me hours to work up the courage to do it.

She labeled her boxes so well. 'Kitchen,' and 'bathroom,' and 'books.' And 'Christmas 333.'

That one is near the back of the room, in the corner. I use my nail to break the tape that keeps it closed.

I lift the lid off the box. And I let out a low moan of grief when I see what's inside.

It's not her treasured Christmas trinkets, carefully wrapped in newspaper and stacked. It's a bunch of hastily packed objects - books and picture frames and a mesh desk organizer.

Then I remember how these boxes even got here; that Johanna and Finnick and a few of Prim's coworkers had gone to the apartment after the police gave the all-clear and thrown her things together. It was kind, to spare those closest to her the horror of being in the place that she died.

Who could fault them for just throwing her things in boxes and getting the hell out?

Of course they wouldn't have taken the time to put her things in the boxes they were intended for.

But all that leaves me with now is chaos - dozens of boxes packed with no rhyme or reason. No way, without going through each of her possessions, to find the one thing I needed to see tonight. And the idea of that task alone is exhausting. I don't know if I'll ever be able to.

So I sit on the floor, next to the Christmas box with no Christmas in it and hug my knees to my chest. Even though it's not even dawn, I know today will be a Bad day.

Peeta finds me in the corner soon after. I've spent so long staring at the same fixed point on the wall that I barely realize he's there.

"Katniss." His voice is rough, his eyes bleary, like he's caught somewhere between sleep and awakening.

"I can't find her ornaments," I tell him, and then an unexpected wave of panic hits. I try to expel it with a hissing breath, but that only makes it worse.

I press my cool fingers into my bare kneecaps, hoping the pain that comes from the pressure will help to ground me.

Instead, it brings tears to the corners of my eyes. And once they're there, they won't stop coming. In deep, heaving sobs - the kind that feel like choking.

"Katniss," Peeta says again. This time he's right beside me, crouching down so he's at my eye-level. The concern is etched in his face, an almost permanent fixture there now.

He doesn't need to ask why a box of ornaments is my undoing, because he knows. He doesn't tell me it's going to be okay, because it's not.

Instead, he runs his hand through his hair before resting an arm on an oversized box marked 'Winter clothes.'

"Do you want to look for them?"

I suck in a deep breath, palming my hair back from my face. "I want - I don't know if I can."

He reaches up, and tucks some of my dark tresses - the ones I missed - behind my ear. "I'll help you."

* * *

><p>We spend Christmas Eve going through every box. Hand-me-down plates and a mismatched set of cutlery. Towels that smell like her detergent. Used nursing textbooks still marked with a rainbow of Post-It tags.<p>

Socks. She had so many socks. She used to wear three pairs at once in the winter, and she'd still complain that her feet were cold.

Peeta divides her belongings; the things we'll keep, the things we'll give away. Her favorite coffee mug goes in our kitchen cabinet; her clothes will all go to the battered women's shelter downtown.

And then there's the photos. She loved pictures of her friends and family, so much that every surface of every space she ever inhabited was covered with framed images of the people she loved most.

Peeta stacks them in neat piles and puts them back in their box when I tell him I don't know if I'm ready to look.

We open the last box together. And I know, as soon as I lift the flaps, that we've finally found what I was looking for. The scent of her cinnamon candles hit me all at once, and for just a moment, in my mind, I see the little girl, four or five - the one with the bright blue eyes and white-blonde hair - that fell in love with this exact scent because she said it smelled like Santa's magic.

I don't try to stop the tears that fall as I lift each item out of the box. The sweaters and socks and silverware I've spent the day sorting didn't hit me like this does; because those were her things, yes, but they didn't feel like a part of her. Not the way the ropes of lights, and sprigs of fake mistletoe, and ancient Snoopy-themed advent calendar do.

Peeta wraps an arm around my shoulders, letting me lean into him as I lay the contents of the box out before me. A santa hat. A porcelain ice skating penguin. The Celine Dion Christmas CD.

At the very bottom is a garment box from a long-forgotten department store. The edges are worn after years of use. And there's a thick line of masking tape across the top, labeled with a little kid's lettering.

**PRIM'S ORNEMANTS**

"Peeta, I can't," I gasp.

He tightens his grip around my shoulders, then, hugging me close. He murmurs his answer.

"You don't have to," he says, and it's a promise. "We can try next year."

We find the box labeled with 'Christmas' and three hearts in the pile of empty containers and pack her favorite things in it. Then, I take it to our bedroom and put it on the closet shelf.

"Let's go for a drive," Peeta tells me. "Yeah?"

It's only then that I realize I haven't even left the house in days. Since I got home from work the day I got Delly's mixer reminder.

"Yeah," I agree, and I reach for my coat.

* * *

><p>Even though it's barely past 5 p.m., it's dark when we leave our apartment. Though there's no snow on the ground, the air is biting cold. I sit in Peeta's Jeep as it defrosts and he scrapes the frost off the windows.<p>

The feeling that's coursing through me isn't emptiness, it isn't grief. It's a kind-of numb peace, like one task in the post-Prim world I never wanted has at least been completed. I've started the work of finalizing her loss, internalizing it, making it a permanent part of my life.

Peeta slides in the car and turns to look at me. "Where do you want to go?"

We could go to Mom's - she's having her sister and a few friends over for a quiet gathering. We could show up, unshowered and unkempt, to his mother's house and really give her a reason to yell. We could call our friends, go to a bar, and get drunk with all the other broken people in town.

But instead, I tell him to just drive.

And he just asks me to tell him when to stop.

We make it to the park a few miles out from the city limit and park at the overlook where high school kids go to get the kind of privacy they can't find anywhere else.

The entire town looks like it's lit up; each house outlined with rows of multi-colored lights. From here, it looks like the kind of tiny Christmas village you display on your mantle. Tiny, and quiet, and full of quiet cheer.

It feels right, to be so removed from it. And maybe it's how high up we are, and that distant notion of where dead people go when they die; maybe it's because Celine Dion is singing "Silent Night" on the radio. But sitting here and looking down, I feel somehow closer to Prim than I have in a long time.

I reach for Peeta's hand, and find his palm already open and waiting for mine.

"I didn't get you anything," I tell him. "For Christmas."

He squeezes my hand and gives me a sad smile. "I didn't know what to get you, either."

I turn back and look through the windshield, at the glittering town below us.

I feel a surge of gratitude. Because even though today hurt, even though it was hard, we're here, and it's calm, and it's beautiful. Today was a good day.

So I lace my fingers in his, and squeeze back, and tell him, "This is enough."

-end-

**Author's note: Thanks to c-r-roberts for pre-reading, providing wisdom and swearing at me. **


End file.
